“The powers from the kings?” I whisper.
He stops and nods as if that’s what he’s been explaining and don’t I see that this is the only way. He’s talking like a mad person in a tone that’s trying to convince me. Of what, I have no idea. I’m hardly listening now. Something is wrong in my veins. As if the spider I swallowed is reacting to Draewulf, or Eogan, I can’t tell which. It’s clawing its way out of my chest to attack him while the vortex in my chest responds to the insanity in him.
The spider begins shaking beneath my skin, as if thrumming her web, drawing on all the fury and anger and scared-as-hulls confusion. “What do you want me for? What am I a vessel for—are you going to destroy me too?” I yank his arm and pull myself next to his face. “Because if you are, then just bleeding do it.”
His hand is still on my neck and I’m glad because it means he’s not noticing my palms on his chest. Working to pull his very soul from his host as the spider crawls through me to claim her victory. I can see it now, Draewulf’s eyes flickering before mine, even if there’s no green anymore.
I squeeze both hands against his shirt and command the hunger in me to take over. To take it all. To rip Draewulf from the very seams of Eogan’s sinew and skin.
Draewulf lets out another roar but doesn’t pull away. As if he enjoys the pain. Except the next instance he’s weakening. His shoulders slump away from me even as his essence begins to struggle for freedom from the host containing him.
His power attaches to my hands and slips up my wrists. I watch it creep up, a blackening in my skin, seeping up to look like cracked glass as it seeks to break loose. I can feel the energy inside him. Burning. Alive. Full of the lives he’s taken. Along with their fear.
That fear is all I need. The chasm in me surfaces, shooting ice through my arm and my once-gimpy fingers that are now perfect, the tips of them drawing every last breath from Draewulf’s lungs.
I smile and reach farther, harsher, pressing in stronger, turning my head to watch his eyes for flecks of green, his smile, his face for separation from this demonic spirit. Suddenly I sense it. The tearing inside. The ripping of power and energy and breath.
Black wisps like I saw at the Keep erupt around Eogan’s body. They swirl and hiss, and for a moment I can see the animal’s wolf face inside Eogan’s.
He lunges for my hand, crunching it with his. I cry out but don’t release him even as the thought erupts that I can’t take him down. He will win this.
I pull harder anyway.
“Eogan,” my soul calls to his. I wait for him to appear because I swear I perceive him slipping from the surface. There’s no answer.
Suddenly the energy I’m drawing is too fluid, too dark and dank, and too strong to be contained by a block anymore. As if Eogan’s block has broken. I press in harder and the coiling within him is unlike any I’ve felt. This is power and freedom and strength that is on a level my ability could not hold in a thousand lifetimes. Somehow I know this.
“Eogan, please!” I say aloud, but my voice sounds dull. Empty.
Draewulf’s energy begins receding from mine. I can feel it just as clearly as I can feel Draewulf’s chest shaking in laughter beneath my fingers and the fight draining out of me at the soul-level realization. There is no Eogan any longer. They are one being.
Draewulf glimmers those ghoulish eyes at me, which are not Eogan’s but black to match the beautiful black skin that once belonged to him. He pulls back and there’s not even a tug against my hands this time.
No.
No no no no no. Abruptly I’m screaming at him that “I will not allow this because I did not come this far and train this hard to let this be how he ends.” I scratch for his face, trying to rip it from Eogan’s, trying to tear his heart out even as my lungs compress.
Suddenly the airship dips down and slopes toward the water, suggesting I’ve drained the air from more than just this room.
Good. Then we’ll all die.
Draewulf yelps and grabs my wrist. He bends it back until my screams turn to pain, and all the while he’s murmuring those blasted foreign words. Then the ship rights itself and he looks down at me and smirks.
I spit at him. “It’s not going to end like this,” I hiss. Doesn’t he know death is too long, too thick a curtain to try to cross alone? I swear at Eogan because doesn’t he remember that I told him to hold on? Because everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve fought for, has just ended—disappeared into the sea of black that is Draewulf’s eyes.
My body shakes as the realization settles in:
Draewulf has won.
He tucks a strand of Eogan’s jagged hair behind his ear and smirks. “It’s just you and me now, pet.”
CHAPTER 36